Gravity
Summary: Three bodies in orbit. Summer: Carthak Imperial University. Arram goes to school.
notes: I'm not sure why I wrote this. I can't seem to get Emperor Mage out of my head. Howl's Moving Castle did this for a while, but I didn't write fanfic about that. And I made up a lot of stuff. Just so you know. and to paraphrase Ryan Adams, I think I must say to be young is to be sad...
If there is one thing you should know about the Imperial University of Cathark, that thing (according to the students) is to avoid the royals. There are always a few of them scattered about, pretending to read books or kicking slaves, wearing lots of expensive jewels and looking bored, making teachers nervous. Arram Draper, who knew this about as well as a mouse knows the mating rituals of eagles, did not know that this was normal behavior for royals. Nor did he know that Ozorne, who sat right across from him in Anatomy and Physiology, was a royal.
The Imperial University is very big and summer oriented. In Cathark, everything is summer oriented. The white robes of novices were unpopular, but at least they were cool and didn't hold the summer heat during long lectures. Most students slept during these lectures, especially in the worst heat of the summer. Some got heatstroke, but they were slaves and therefore unimportant. Only the teachers, who kept their unreserved pasison for their subject no matter what, insisted on giving exams and notes and lectures during this ridiculous part of the day.
If there's another thing you should know about the Imperial University, it's that know-it-all bookworms are not popular. Actually, this is true of about every school you could speak of. But Arram Draper's parents were very firm on that one point--this was an education they were paying for, his father said, very clearly and with a sternly raised eyebrow. You were going to Get Educated. So this summer, while everyone around him fanned themselves with notes or had their heads lying on their desks from despair, Arram Draper was copying notes. Conscientously copying notes. There was this to be said for him: he wrote faster than everyone else in the class. And he had a good memory. He had to, because he wrote down everything the professors said.
The Anatomy and Physiology class was a large one. The hall had a capacity of fifty to sixty and was currently full, the ampitheater accomdating a sweating professor who was projecting diagrams on the wall.
If Ozorne sat right across from Arram, Varice sat behind him. Varice was the one thing Arram's father would have disapproved of: blonde, buxom, and there to distract him from his studies. Currently she was lying back in her chair, her white sleeves rolled up as high as they would go, her blonde hair hanging limp and straight down the back of her chair.
"Arram," she whispered. "Arram. You aren't taking notes. Tell me you aren't taking notes."
"This is still class," he pointed out.
"You are crazy," she said. "Crazy. A psychopath. It is one hundred and twenty degrees outside. We are staring at bird skeletons. I cannot stare at bird skeletons when it is one hundred and twenty degrees outside."
"But this is going to be on the test," he said, pausing in his note taking as the professor wiped his face with a sleeve, already stained by previous such endeavours. He even turned to look at Varice, who rolled her head around to look at him, though she didn't exert the effort to raise up. "You need this class to pass, Varice. Your mother will kill you if you fail it."
"I don't care," she said. "It's not like I care about Anatomy anyway. I don't care if you were the foremost expert on bird skeletons in the world. It's impossible to study under conditions like this."
Arram, intent on copying notes, didn't respond. Varice sighed and slid further down in her chair.
"You're going to fall," Arram began, but by that time Varice had slid completely out of her chair, knocking it over. The class turned and looked. The professor, pointer in hand, paused and turned around.
"Is there a problem?" he asked, as Varice turned scarlet.
"No, no sir," she stammared, picking up her chair and sitting back down, her back ramrod straight. The professor looked slightly puzzled and stern.
"Please attempt to pay attention to my lecture, if you would," he said. "Since you have paid for this education, you should all be making the best of it."
Varice muttered something unintelligible under her breath. The professor, intent on looking for his next slide, didn't notice. "He's right, you know," Ozorne said.
"Excuse me?" Varice said, her temper flaring.
Ozorne jerked a thumb towards Arram. "Him," he said. "Yes, it's hot outside, but you could have skipped."
"My mother would kill me," Varice snapped.
"She will also kill you if you fail," he pointed out. "Pick your evil. You're an adult now. Take some responsibility for your own actions."
Varice eyed them both viciously. Ozorne had turned away from her, perfectly unconcerned, while Arram waved his pages back and forth to dry the ink. "Apparently I'm stick between two of them," she muttered, and slid down in her chair again.
"Bones of the wing," said Ozorne, sliding into the chair across from Arram.
Arram looked up. "Humerous, carpal, phalanx," he said immediately, then blinked. "Hello?" he ventured.
The Library wasn't popular this time of the day, but at least it was cool. Overlarge ferns by the entrance waved slighly in the breeze, almost as tall as the bookshelves they stood before. Heavy pillars at the end of each shelf held up a giant dome roof with globes around the edges, as well as hooks for more conventional torches. The torches and globes were both dark: windows set just below the dome let in light, leaving the library in shadow and--this was the important part--coolness. Arram was sitting at a table staring at a book, his hair just hovering over his eyes.
"Bones of the arm," Ozorne said again, reaching for Arram's paper.
"Humerous, radius, ulna, carpals, phalanges," Arram said.
"Name the carpals," said Ozorne.
"Trapezious, scaphoid, lunate, traquateral, pisiform, trapezoid, capitate, hamate," Arram rattled off, without blinking.
Ozorne smiled then, his teeth white in his dark face. "It is true," he said, leaning back in his chair.
"Excuse me?" Arram asked.
"You and I, my friend, are tied for number one in the class," Ozorne said, yawning. "And I'd rather that not remain a tie."
"I share your sentiments," Arram said, and Ozorne grinned again, a flash of white in his dark face.
"Good," he said. "You'll be rewarded, of course."
"Excuse me?" Arram said.
"You'll be rewarded," Ozorne repeated, sitting back. "If you comply with my wishes and take the number two seat. I'm not an unfair man."
"You're trying to bribe me out of the number one seat?" Arram said. The offense was visible in his voice.
"You don't intend to stand between Prince Ozorne and his wishes," Ozorne said, leaning forward. His smile disappeared.
"And you don't think that a seat you haven't worked for is worth nothing?" Arram said. "You think that you can buy your way to academic achievement? I'm not your slave. If you want the seat you can work for it, just like I have."
Ozorne stood up. "You're not serious," he said. "This is ridiculous. I've had people killed for less than this."
"Go for it," Arram said, standing up also. He towered over Ozorne. "Do what you always do, Ozorne. Have other people fight your battles for you. Goddess forbid you actually fight them yourself!"
Ozorne's hands balled into fists and he turned, storming out of the library. Arram stood at the end of the table, watching him go. When Ozorne had cleared the room, Arram sat back down and started copying out more notes, his fist shaking only slightly.
Varice was mad at him for a week. "Pissing off Ozorne," she said. "Awesome. Awesome. Piss off the Crown Prince, Arram. You're awesome. Amazing!"
"You can stop using the sarcasm anytime," he said tiredly, rubbing his eyes. "I get the point."
"No, I think you don't," Varice said. They were sitting in a courtyard, Arram (as usual) carrying a book, Varice (as usual) sewing on her novice robes to lower the neckline. "I really think you don't see how amazing this is, what a smart, career-advancing move this is. This isn't even Magic. This is about an Anatomy class. You know how much Anatomy sucks? You know how boring and not worth this much pain Anatomy is?"
"It's not the class," Arram said. He was lying back on a bench, a book resting on his chest. Varice was leaned against the bench, her mouth twisted in a frown. "It's the principle of the thing. We Northerners don't give up our achievements to imperial whim."
"Don't talk to me like I was Carthaki," Varice retorted. "You mages. You're all the same."
"Don't talk like you're not a mage," Arram said lightly, tapping his fingers along the edges of his book, resting face-down on his chest.
"I'm not," Varice said, pulling the needle through the cloth. "You know what I do while you study magic? I sew. I make these terrible robes look good. I like sewing. I like cooking. I hate studying Anatomy and History and Palentology. I don't care about the theory of magic. I care about the different things you can do to cream cheese. Arram, I am not a mage."
"But you have a strong Gift," he protested. "There are people in the program with half your Gift who work twice as hard as you, who would kill to have it. Don't you feel responsible to use it?"
"I refuse to feel responsible for someone else's fallacy," she retorted. "I refuse to change my personal likes and dislikes based on someone else's standard of what is important."
"I see you've enjoyed your logic classes, if nothing else," he said, dryly.
"Hated them," Varice said. She bit off the thread with her teeth. "Look at that, a good three inches shorter."
"You'll get in trouble," he said.
"Let Shikam yell," she said, naming off the Master of Novices. "At least I won't be wearing a pillowcase anymore."
"You never thought that the purpose of novice robes was to remove temptation and make focus on studying easier?" Arram asked.
"Stop thinking out loud," she said. "What, do you want me to distract you?" She turned around, her face profiled in the summer light. Her lips twisted into a smile. "Arram, I do believe you're blushing."
"You're far too focused on sex," he retorted, but his face was red.
"Maybe you study too much," Varice said. She turned around, her face even with Arram's. "Maybe you need more temptation in your life," she murmured, and kissed him.
All night Arram dreamed of curly hair and blue eyes, strange, close dreams smelling of skin and salt water. When he woke up, it was still dark outside, but Varice had already left, leaving only her faint perfume behind. It smelled manufactured, floral, pleasant. He lay back in bed alone, staring at the ceiling. He did not think about his dream, or Varice, or Ozorne. Somewhere outside the window a bird cried forget what? forget what?
"You and me," he whispered to it, but that was all he allowed himself.
The days got hotter.
Arram wrote to his mother, sitting in the library with ink that didn't even dry in the heat. Varice sat with him, usually sewing on something. Her prescence was comfortable, when they didn't talk. And when she spoke, all he could think of was the distance between them, like a desert stretched out across the library table.
"I've decided not to have you killed," Ozorne announced one day, at such a meeting. He stood at the end of their table, watching Arram with his books open and Varice with her thread spread out on the table.
"I'd thank you, if I could find the gratitude," Arram muttered. "Excuse me if I don't believe killing off your rivals to be a real strategy."
"You're arrogant," Ozorne said.
"I'm not the one who tried to kill someone for being smarter than me," Arram pointed out, lying his pen down. He was the only one still wearing the novice robe: Ozorne was wearing the short, light imperial robe, and Varice wore a red dress. "I'm not in class" was her reasoning.
"That still has to be proven," Ozorne said. "Mind if I sit?"
Varice squeaked and hurriedly began moving her thread. Ozorne sat down, smiling at her. "I don't bite," he said. "Not unless you want me to, anyway."
Arram rolled his eyes and snorted. "Stop coming over here just to hit on girls," he said.
"Hit on girls? You don't know the first thing about hitting on girls, Draper," Ozorne said, leaning back in his chair.
"I'm not here to hit on girls," he replied. "I'm here to learn, surprising as that might seem. Not just pass time until I take the throne."
Ozorne snapped his fingers. "You know, you're right," he said. "Why hadn't I thought of that. Just passing time."
Varice was staring at Arram, her eyes big as saucers. She was gesturing frantically under the table.
"I wouldn't want to get in the way of your amusement," Arram said, cool. "And yes, Varice, I see your hand, you can stop staring at me and trying to make me stop."
Ozorne laughed. "She, at least, knows her place," he said.
"Sitting across from the Crown Prince?" Arram said, then laughed. "Oh yes, I think we're all on equal footing here."
Ozorne was eyeing Varice. "You are pretty," he said, as if he were deciding something. "Arram, she's too pretty for you. I can't believe you've let it go on like this."
Arram scowled, his face darkening. "You're an idiot," he said, but Ozorne was already smiling at Varice. She didn't last long under the gaze. Her fingers wilted, her needle dropping to the table.
"You're not busy later, are you, my dear?" Ozorne asked Varice. "Surely you can spare some time to see the Royal Palace..."
Arram's scowl deepened as they walked away together.
Varice didn't come see him anymore. Sometimes she and Ozorne would come sit by him as he studied under one of the large trees in the quad, Varice watching her every word and Ozorne taunting Arram mercilessly. He didn't complain. He washed his sheets and washed his hair and the floral perfume smell was gone, after a while.
"You're looking at the wrong thing," Ozorne was arguing. He jabbed his finger into Arram's lecture notes. "I don't know why you're looking at the minutae when it's the macroscopic you should be focusing on."
"But they're related," Arram argued, reaching for a piece of paper. "Sure, it starts with the fisherman off the coast in a storm. But then the relation of that to the rope markets around and the local fish market--"
"But they don't matter," Ozorne interjected. "The local economy can absorb all that, look, it's got a plus or minus surplus-defecit of at least 5000, one boat won't matter--"
"You listen to Harsna too much," Arram retorted. "You're a fool if you can't see this. It's not just one boat, it's the entire fleet affected, and lives lost too--"
They were sitting at a table on the terrace of the university, under a ledge. Economics books were open around the two and notes abounded: ink and pens were scattered around the table.
"You're an idiot," Arram said, sitting back in the chair, crossing his arms. "If you don't see the value of these fishing boats to the whole kingdom--"
"An idiot! Am I!" Ozorne threw up his hands. "You make it sound like all of Carthak is dependent on five measly fishing boats and the whole economy is going to collapse at one storm--"
"I am not even saying that," Arram argued hotly. "You're the one who doesn't even care about the citizens of the country. It's not even the boats, it's just an example, Graveyard Hag--"
"And you rely too much on examples and not on numbers," Ozorne retorted. "Look, we have figures. Population numbers. We can support so many natural disasters."
"Because of your local networks!" Arram practically shouted. "If you can't see the value of that then you're an idiot!"
Ozorne sat back in his chair, unmoving. "You're just jealous," he said.
Arram exploded. "Jealous?"
"Because I took your girlfriend."
"Oh yeah, right, that's exactly it," he shouted, throwing his pen down in disgust. "I'm not trying to argue economics, this is all about your sex life. I'm sorry, I forgot the world revolved around your sex life--"
Ozorne still didn't move. "Jealous," he repeated.
"I fear the day you become Emperor," Arram said. "If you don't learn fast."
"You worry too much," Ozorne said. "You got what you wanted, didn't you? You're the number one seat. I'm number two. I got what I wanted. And boy, isn't she lovely--"
Arram slammed down his books. "Damn you," he said, quietly. "I don't even care about her, and I think she deserves better than you."
"Admit it, Draper," Ozorne said. "You keep coming back to me. I'm your only equal here. Equal in magic, equal in knowledge."
"Equal in magic, right," Arram said. "That's why I'm constantly doing better than you in class."
Ozorne shrugged. "Semantics," he said. "No one in class is as powerful as us." He looked up at Arram, his face slanted. "You know, it's probably a good thing you're here," he commented. "That way I have someone to measure my power against."
"Your arrogance has no bounds," Arram said. "The whole world exists to serve you, you know that? Well, you can forget it." He stood up and started slinging his books into his bag.
"What?" Ozorne asked, curiosity overcoming him. "What are you doing?"
Arram threw the bag over his shoulder, walking away. "Postgraduate studies," he said shortly.
Ozorne's mouth dropped open and he stood up, walking towards Arram. "You can't do that," he began. "There's nothing after the yellow robe but the black--"
"That's right!" Arram yelled, his back to Ozorne.
"You'll never survive!" Ozorne shouted. "Eighty percent of black robe applicants die! Half of them never get through the first Ordeal!"
"At least I'll die trying," Arram shouted. "Someone has to be able to keep you in check."
"Idiot!" Ozorne snarled, as Arram walked away. "Idiot!"
"Please don't tell me you are doing this to one-up Ozorne," Varice said. She stood in front of the customary Arram library-corner, one hand on a hip. "You are. Gods. You are an idiot."
Arram looked up. "Please, don't flatter yourself," he said, sitting back. "You think I'm doing this for you?"
Varice's slap in his face made his ears ring. "You idiot," she snarled. "I don't care if this has anything to do with me! Are you mad I left you for Ozorne? Well, surprise, he's the Crown Prince. I'm sorry. And if you're going to sulk about it, fine. Whatever. It's your life. But if you're going to go get yourself killed over it, how am I supposed to feel about that? Because I refuse to feel guilty," she said, crossing her arms. "You always try to make me feel guilty and I never will."
Arram opened and closed his eyes. "You had to slap me," he said. "You can't just yell at me, you had to slap me--"
Varice sat down. "You're a recluse," she said. "You never leave your rooms or the library, I'm the only friend you have, or maybe Ozorne if you count him as a friend--Goddess knows you need someone to talk to. You study all the time. You're number one in the class and you don't even know the rest of the class, maybe you should do that sometime? Ever think about that?"
Arram's cheeks burned from more than the blow. "You think I--" he cut off. "My parents," he began, taking a deep breath, "If you knew my mother, my father, they--"
"They what?" Varice said. "They beat you? Surprise. My parents beat me too. Ozorne? His cousins have poisoned him three times. You act like you've got it bad? Your entire life has been controlled? Get over it. Everyone else did."
"Shut up," Arram said. His face was fully flushed but his gaze was steady and murderous as he stared at Varice.
"No, you shut up," she said. "Stop thinking you're better than everyone else. Stop trying to prove whatever it is you're trying to prove. Drop the black mage studies--isn't this enough as it is?"
"It never occured to you that I actually like learning?" he asked, dryly.
"Liking learning is not part of doing that," she said. "There has to be some personal machochistic desire as well, to go through that amount of torture."
"Maybe it's worth it," Arram said.
"Maybe you're a crazy psychopath suicidal idiot," Varice said, but she wasn't frowning anymore.
"Maybe I just like magic," Arram pointed out. "Maybe I've beend doing this since I was six and since that's been about twelve years now I finally decided that this is what I want to do."
"Has anyone ever told you you can do magic without killing yourself?" Varice asked.
"Really?" he asked. "No! Oh my gods! Are you serious?"
Varice swatted him this time, but not with intentions of pain. "Just tell me you aren't doing this for me," she said.
Arram raised an eyebrow. "Oh Varice, the world revolves around you, you are the reason for everything I do--"
"Shut up," she said, laughing.
"You've been around Ozorne too long," Arram said. "Do you really think I'd do this for anyone besides myself?"
"I don't know," Varice said. "You're so quiet. You never talk. You just talk to professors. And nobody goes through black robe Ordeals without being at least a little crazy, or ambitious, or both."
"Both," Arram said. "Definately both."
"Just checking," Varice said. "And I'm sorry about the slap."
The Ordeals were much, much harder than Arram expected them to be.
At night he could feel the magic coursing through his veins with his blood. He had sunk to that level, too, shrunk himself with his Gift and seen the inside of his blood cells, thudding around his body and crashing into capillary walls. Anatomy from the Inside, he called it. He slept with books, slept on books, didn't sleep and read books, books until they filled his vision. The uses of dragon blood, the types of immortals and their dwelling places, the fundamental particles of magic and the magical properties of common metals and plants. That was minor. More important, and harder to wrap the mind around, was the magic itself--the nature of the Gift, its forms and limitations, the extremely tricky uses of magic to do such simple things, things requiring hours of concentration. He had been able to light a fire since he was born, using only his mind, but now he had to do it the hard way, just as the first mages had done it, rediscovering fire from the ground up. And then more complicated things as well. There were words of power, thousands, each to be memorized and recited--but never said--each list of consequences memorized.
And on top of that were the physical tasks.
When he slept it was with fire coursing through his veins. All night he walked along the bottom of the ocean, lost in blue eyes and pale skin and some strange, soft sensation brushing against his mouth. He woke up in a tangle of sheets and sweat, scared to find tears on his face. Too many people cracked when they went through the Ordeals. Some people went to sleep and never woke up, some people whispered words of power when studying and blew up wings of the University. It was lonely. Varice never stopped in to check on him anymore; she had a job at the royal palace, and he saw her at functions sometimes, smiling and wearing red, her favorite color. Ozorne was being diplomatic and Crown-Prince-like, smiling coldly and threatening to blow up everything.
At night it was very obvious that he was sleeping alone. In his dreams he saw his mother, her disapproving eyes and his father's hands, large as his own and calloused and hard. He dreamed of flesh and pleasure and woke up with a burning sensation in the back of his mind, deep in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't get rid of the feeling that he'd done something wrong, something he didn't recognize that was slowly eating him from the inside out.
He woke up in the early morning and listened to the birds again. forget what? forget what? they said, but he didn't say anything this time.